


I am Mike Chilton

by drown (teii)



Category: Motorcity
Genre: Gen, PTSD, Torture, mentions of cannibalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-23
Updated: 2012-07-23
Packaged: 2017-11-10 13:23:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/466776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teii/pseuds/drown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prison AU.</p><p>"Chuck, or D711F4, screams himself to sleep nowadays. The sound travels all the way from gen pop to down here in max, and it starts and stops like clockwork. In a way, it’s comforting—at least he’s not dead."</p>
            </blockquote>





	I am Mike Chilton

**Author's Note:**

> Somewhere in between seeing the “I’m Mike Chilton” joke for the ten billionth and ten billion and one times, I kind of snapped and said ‘fuck it, you guys win, I’m in.’
> 
> This was the result. No beta, no major backspacing, just freeforming.

I am Mike Chilton.

They didn’t bother giving me a prisoner code when they pushed me down into max security, and rather than the standard bright orange uniform, they handed me back my old cadet fatigues, freshly laundered and pressed. I spent the first two days in my boxers, and tried flushing the uniform down the toilet until they cranked the thermostat in my cell down to negative ten Celsius.

“Discipline, cadet!” They cheerfully called out when they brought out another uniform, in the same clean, pristine condition. I lasted only last three hours this time before I gave in to hypothermia. I wore it inside out and tried my best to mangle the Kane co. insignia, but it’s hard to rip a uniform that was built to last with frost-bitten, shaking hands.

Please try to understand.

\--

Chuck, or D711F4, screams himself to sleep nowadays. The sound travels all the way from gen pop to down here in max, and it starts and stops like clockwork. In a way, it’s comforting—at least he’s not dead.

Texas didn’t make it—they sent him to the Wall on the very first day. They made us all watch—the only reason why they installed state-of-the-art holoviewers in each of our cells. If you could ignore the tiny, screaming dot in the center of the Wall, you could almost appreciate the beauty of the electric blue sparks flickering out patterns along the Wall. The smell of charred flesh lingered in the air for days, and knowing how my ex-comrades ticked and the stunts they liked to pull, I didn’t touch my food afterwards. They must’ve thought I was staging a hunger strike, funny enough, because they rigged up an IV in my chamber and regularly serve me water every two hours when I’m awake, staring me down until I drank every drop.

“Compliments to the chef,” I hummed, giving my jailer a wink, but they merely stomp away with the cup, muttering under their breath.

They still send in food, though, and I have to dispose of it quick before the smell of it gets to me and I feel sick to my stomach.

But try as I might, I can’t get the smell of muscle mulch out of my cell.

\--

Dutch is under house arrest. They can’t pin anything on him given that he was in Deluxe when everything went down, but Kane isn’t taking any chances. Last I heard was that his old man got ousted from his position down at City Hall and his mum got the boot from the Board at the University. 

It’s hard, sometimes, remembering what he looked like. It’s hard to remember what any of them looked like anymore.

I know they scrubbed my retinas before I was shoved into max, and official reports that I read during my time as a cadet stated that the scrubs were mainly for lifting ‘pertinent information’.

But now? I only get fuzzy, incoherent shapes, muted colors, and faded memories paired with clear, sharp voices. Julie’s voice, as she yells through the lines to head back, turn around, don’t do this you guys, _please please please_.

 

\--

They play it.

Over and over and over and over again.

Sometimes, they play it so many times that it overlaps into D117F4’s screaming hour, and if they feel particularly congenial, long past that.

But they didn’t need to—I can just close my eyes and taste the burning smoke and ash in my mouth, the heat of the flames as Motorcity burned down into nothing. The way the metal melted and the plastic popped and everything all of a sudden being wavy and black and dying.

And even in my chilled cell, I still sweat at the thought of the heat.

\--

They take me out finally, 46 days later. They offer me sunglasses for the trip outside, and I put them on, thinking that I might at least look cool, against the Wall. I give D117F4 a wave as I pass by his cell but he’s asleep, curled up on his bunk with his hands covering his face. It’s alright though, might’ve been better that way.

The sun is a bit of surprise. It feels warm on my skin, but they drag me out of the penitentiary entirely to a waiting convoy. They shove me into the first box, and we float up and over to the direction of Kaneco tower.

But I don’t look at it. I take in the sun, and through the red and black tints, I move as close to the edge as possible, staring up at the sun and if only for a moment, my hands stop shaking and my lungs don’t feel like they’re filled with ice.

We get to the tower in efficient time and two guards take each of my arms to frogmarch me in front of Kane. He surprisingly doesn’t even bother to gloat, simply waves a hand to follow him. The glass to the balcony dissolves, and I’m pushed onto it, nearly careening into Kane.

A Wall was installed at the very end.

“Look at all the people that came to see you, Chilton,” Kane muses, waving a hand at the boxes and boxes of denizens, pressing their faces onto the glass of their homes, blinking down.

“Lucky for them.”

Kane nods, “Go on, tell the good folks of Deluxe your name.”

He pushes me forward, and I come face to face with my visage, plastered up on dozens of holoviewers, before a blood-red backdrop and a ‘CAPTURED’ written across my chest.

It comes out harder than I anticipated:

“I am Mike Chilton.”


End file.
